Tuesday, April 17, 2012

I came by today’s topic from two different directions, and with very different feelings on each one. My wife and I have been having discussions about stagings of various operas we’ve seen lately, and bemoaning the fact that many of them just do not work. Case in point was the production of Rigoletto that I wrote about several months ago (sorry, I can’t put my finger on it at the moment). The one set they used was jaw-dropping, but the problem was that it didn’t work for several scenes. If one didn’t know the opera well, it would have been nearly impossible to figure out where the action was supposed to be taking place.

The issue is that stage directors and set designers always seem to want to do something fresh with these older operas. Opera lovers would yell and scream, stamping their little feet, if someone started messing around with the music, so what else is left? The staging, of course. Sometimes the results are unintentionally hilarious, like the production of Wagner’s Ring that took place in a post-apocalyptic subway. Robert Lepage’s Ring at the Met this season elicited strong “boos” at its performances.

To sum up, re-imagining classics often doesn’t work. But this post has a dual-thrust as I mentioned in the opening paragraph.

My son recently loaned us discs of the new BBC re-look at Sherlock Holmes set in our current world. Called just Sherlock, stripped away are many of the trappings of the original stories and they’re replaced by some pretty thought-provoking details that Conan Doyle only slightly hinted at. The results are, in a word, brilliant.

I have to say I came to the series preparing to be thoroughly underwhelmed. After the Jeremy Brett series in the ’80s, I figured the bar had been set impossibly high. Sure the Robert Downey Jr/Jude Law movies have been entertaining, but they really aren’t anything all that special. Sherlock is.

First of all, the acting is first-rate from top to bottom, especially the two leads, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman (soon to be appearing as Bilbo Baggins!). Rupert Graves is DI Greg Lestrade and the character is played as an exasperated cop whom at wit’s end is forced to call in Holmes.

Holmes is still a “consulting detective” and Watson is still an army doctor recently returned from Afghanistan (lucky, that), but they have been thoroughly “modernized”. Holmes has a website called “The Art of Detection” and Watson’s stories about Holmes appear on his blog. They Twitter, they Facebook and they text like mad, cell phones and computers are everywhere, as they should be, because Holmes would have made great use of the new media. Oh, and now Jim Moriarity is a “consulting criminal”.

And it all works! The dialogue goes like stink, is sharp and witty. The camera work is brilliant, and the whole production just cheeky enough towards The Canon that someone like me, who thinks the whole Cult of Sherlock Holmes is a bit ridiculous, can have some honest chuckles in that direction.

The first show in the series, “A Study in Pink”, had my jaw on the floor and the show went up from there. For those of us who write, the DVD set also comes with the original 60-minute pilot of the same episode shot before BBC decided they wanted 90-minute productions. It is intensely interesting to note how the script changed, the production values moved ahead, and with a different director, how the whole story was re-imagined. Both work – and work well. Why? Because someone thought about this a lot and didn’t push the concept past where it would stop working so well.

Rick Blechta writes on Tuesdays

Barbara Fradkin writes on alternate Wednesdays

Sybil Johnson writes on Alternate Wednesdays

Donis Casey writes on alternate Thursdays

John Corrigan writes on alternate Thursdays

Charlotte Hinger writes on alternate Fridays

Frankie Bailey writes on Alternate Fridays

Vicki Delany writes on the second weekend of every month

Mario Acevedo writes on the 4th Saturday of each month

Aline Templeton

Aline Templeton lives in Edinburgh in a house with a balcony overlooking the beautiful city skyline. Her series featuring DI Marjory Fleming is set in beautiful Galloway, in South-west Scotland. alinetempleton.co.uk

Rick Blechta

Rick has two passions in life, mysteries and music, and his thrillers contain liberal doses of both. He has two upcoming releases, Roses for a Diva, his sequel to The Fallen One, for Dundurn Press, and for Orca’s Rapid Reads series, The Boom Room, a second book featuring detectives Pratt & Ellis. You can learn more about what he’s up to at www.rickblechta.com. From the musical side, Rick leads a classic soul band in Toronto. Check out SOULidifiedband.com. And lastly, being a former line cook with an interest in all things culinary, he has a blog dedicated to food: A Man for All Seasonings.

Barbara Fradkin

Barbara Fradkin is a retired psychologist with a fascination for how we turn bad. Her dark short stories haunt the Ladies Killing Circle anthologies, but she is best known for her award-winning series featuring the quixotic, exasperating Ottawa Police Inspector Michael Green, published by Dundurn Press. The ninth book, The Whisper of Legends, was published in April 2013. Visit Barbara at barbarafradkin.com.

Sybil Johnson

Sybil Johnson’s love affair with reading began in kindergarten with “The Three Little Pigs.” Visits to the library introduced her to Encyclopedia Brown, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and a host of other characters. Fast forward to college where she continued reading while studying Computer Science. After a rewarding career in the computer industry, Sybil decided to try her hand at writing mysteries. Her short fiction has appeared in Mysterical-E and Spinetingler Magazine, among others. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in Southern California where she enjoys tole painting, studying ancient languages and spending time with friends and family. Find her at www.authorsybiljohnson.com.

Donis Casey

Donis is the author of six Alafair Tucker Mysteries. Her award-winning series, featuring the sleuthing mother of ten children, is set in Oklahoma during the booming 1910s. Donis is a former teacher, academic librarian, and entrepreneur. She lives in Tempe, AZ, with her husband, poet Donald Koozer. The latest Alafair Tucker novel, The Wrong Hill to Die On (Poisoned Pen Press, 2012), is available in paper or electronic format wherever books are sold. Readers can enjoy the first chapter of each book on her web site at www.doniscasey.com.

John R Corrigan

John R. Corrigan is D.A. Keeley, author of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agent Peyton Cote series, which is set along the Maine-Canada border. Bitter Crossing (summer 2014) will be the first of at least three novels in the series. Born in Augusta, Maine, he lives with his wife and three daughters at Northfield Mount Hermon School in western Massachusetts, where he is English department chair, a teacher, a hockey coach, and may very well be the only mystery writer in North America who also serves as a dorm parent to 50 teenage girls. A Mainer through and through, he tries to get to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, as often as possible. You can see what he's up to by visiting www.amazon.com/author/DAKeeley or dakeeleyauthor.blogspot.com or on Twitter (@DAKeeleyAuthor).

Charlotte Hinger

Charlotte Hinger is a novelist and Western Kansas historian. Convinced that mystery writing and historical investigation go hand in hand, she now applies her MA in history to academic articles and her depraved imagination to the Lottie Albright series for Poisoned Pen Press. charlottehinger.com

Frankie Bailey

Frankie Y. Bailey is a criminal justice professor who focuses on crime, history, and American culture. Her current project is a book about dress, appearance, and criminal justice. Her mystery series featuring crime historian Lizzie Stuart is set mainly in the South. Her near-future police procedural series featuring Detective Hannah McCabe is set in Albany, New York. Visit Frankie at frankieybailey.com.

Vicki Delany/Eva Gates

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers. She is the author of more than 25 books, including the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year Round Christmas cozy series, the Constable Molly Smith books, standalone novels of suspense, the Klondike Gold Rush series, and novellas for adult literacy. As Eva Gates, she is the author of the national bestselling Lighthouse Library cozy series from Penguin. Find Vicki at www.vickidelany.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/evagatesauthor/

Mario Acevedo

Mario Acevedo is the author of the Felix Gomez detective-vampire series. His short fiction is included in the anthologies, You Don’t Have A Clue: Latino Mystery Stories for Teens and Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery, and in Modern Drunkard Magazine. Mario lives with a dog in Denver, CO. His website is marioacevedo.com.